I found one!

One of my classmates mentioned a game (I forget the name) in which the goal is to try to find a search phrase that elicits only one Google result. I played for my first time tonight, and this was my first winner:

krista "hero's cape"
WINNER!

*This is the second result on a Google image search for "krista hero's cape" (no internal quotation marks). There were no results for "krista 'hero's cape.'" (I wonder if there will be now. Hm.)*

You? Submit winning entries in the comments below.

(Also: This entry reminds me of one of my favorite words--"winningest." Winningest. As in, the coach with the winningest season is Coach Taylor. The first time I heard it was on some sports show, and I felt like while all of us English types were off arguing about the that/which distinction, the sports aficionados had been playing our game and making some competitive headway. Winningest. And the athletes say we use half-dollar words. So great!)

P.S. Don't neglect the post I posted yesterday re the scriptures. (I'm afraid that posting today will make it seem like the one I posted yesterday is somehow no longer important to me, is outmoded. Just one example of blogger fright.) I'm hoping for some comments, any comments that might move the ball forward. The Book of Mormon is true, yeah? And truth is one eternal whole? Let's do some exegesis, folks. A little textual interpretation. Make both judges and scriptorians proud.

Consider: A Scriptural Juxtaposition

A friend recently pointed me to these two scriptures. Do you have thoughts about how they relate?

2 Nephi 2:5
And men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil. And the law is given unto men. And by the law no flesh is justified; or, by the law men are cut off. Yea, by the temporal law they were cut off; and also, by the spiritual law they perish from that which is good, and become miserable forever.

Alma 29:5
Yea, and I know that good and evil have come before all men; he that knoweth not good from evil is blameless; but he that knoweth good and evil, to him it is given according to his desires, whether he desireth good or evil, life or death, joy or remorse of conscience.

I'm just beginning to wonder, but what I'm wondering is if there's significance in the difference between "men" (or "all men") of 2 Nephi 2:5 and the "he" that shows up in the second half of Alma 29:5. So maybe we as men (as in the human race) have, generally, been instructed sufficiently to know good from evil. (Perhaps via the commandments, maybe? Prophetic revelation and instruction throughout time?) And, too, we've been confronted with good and evil (see TV). But it is he (the individual, an individual) who knows the difference between good and evil that will have according to his desires. Only those of us who have actually internalized the lessons of right and wrong, of commandments, etc., will get what it is we want, whether that be ultimately good or bad.

Too, if there are those of us who, for whatever reason, missed the lessons that "all men" received--the general lessons of good from evil, the lessons of the prophets and the commandments--and, as individuals, are truly ignorant of the specific iterations of difference between good and evil, then we will be blameless. (Note: That's really not appropriately a "we" sort of statement. Twenty-seven years of regular church attendance, daily scripture study, being prayerfully parented and righteously roommated means that a lot of the right v. wrong stuff I, like "men" in general, have learned. I'm trying to be on board.)

Or something? Other thoughts? Counter thoughts? Asides?

Transparency

I found this in my archives. It is the text of a speech I gave for a one-day speech workshop I participated in last year. You may have heard this spiel before (very possibly in person), but I thought I'd post it here. Note: I'm not sure I feel this way, exactly, about love anymore. Or, at least, I'm not sure I'm actively promoting this theory these days. These days I'm trying to keep my head down. Love better, talk less. I'm not sure I'm really doing either very well. Snika-peaks, this post is for you.

I believe that transparency is the way we love.

My freshman year of college I lived on the first floor of a large, all-girls dormitory. Across the hall lived two girls—Krista and Anna. Krista was the salutatorian of her high school in Oregon. She always spoke in a baby voice and she loved princesses. Her roommate, Anna, was a very small girl. She looked very much like a thirteen-year-old boy, as the old people she later worked with at a senior citizens’ center told her. In high school, Anna was a very shy girl. A very shy girl, who had no friends. So she decided that, when she came to college, she was going to like people and be social.

Anna quickly became the center of our floor. Our leader and our resident sage. One day, I was talking with her about my life—as we all did because she was the coolest girl on the floor—probably about some boy I was trying to negotiate, and she said, offhandedly and knowingly, “You can’t love someone if you can’t talk to them.” She said it like I agreed with her, like I already knew that was true. And I remember nodding. “Yup, so true.”

But over the years, I’ve remembered that and thought about it. What Anna was saying was kind of audacious. She was saying, you can’t love someone, if you can’t talk to them. You can’t love someone, if you can’t talk to them.

I think this means at least two things: One, it certainly means that if you find yourself unable to say things that are meaningful to you to another person, then you probably don’t love that person. That an inability or a reluctance to say things to someone else is a sign of deeper troubles. But two, I think this means something else, something harder. I think it means that if we don’t talk to people, if we don’t say meaningful things to them, if we don’t have the ability or the capacity to communicate how we feel and what we think, then we are not doing the work of loving. We are not loving.

There are people who disagree with me about this. They say that they are able to show their love for people in ways other than by talking, by being really good at body language, or something. And it’s true that we do communicate a lot of things by what we do and how we act, apart from the words that we say. But I say this: you may be very good at body language, but the person you’re loving might not be. And talking is so cheap (economically speaking). It might be, it turns out, an issue of least-cost avoiding.

For instance, in Brian Greene’s book The Elegant Universe, he says (apparently, according to an erstwhile boyfriend) that one of the ways we know that we are living in at least four dimensions is that there are at least four things you have to tell someone in order to successfully arrange a meeting with them. You have to tell them where to be longitudinally, latitudinally, altitudinally (how far up from the earth), and at what time. For example, meet me at the corner of 24th and Broadway, on the third floor, on Tuesday at 3.

You could, it’s true, try to communicate all of these things via body language. OR, or you could just say: hey, let’s meet at the corner of 24th and Broadway, on the third floor, on Tuesday. Talking is a low-cost way of communicating and it allows a level of specificity and fluidity that body language does not. But the point is this: if we don’t communicate these things, if we can’t communicate them, then we won’t end up where we want to be with the people we want to be there.

What I’m arguing for is transparency. I think we have a responsibility, the necessity, to be as transparent as we can be in at least our personal relationships with people. We can’t love someone, if we aren’t telling them what we’re thinking and how we feel about it. We aren’t loving them if we aren’t telling them those things. And we aren’t making it possible for them to love us, if we aren’t trying to make it easier for them to tell us what matters to them, if we aren’t trying to make it easier for them to be transparent.

I do want to recognize that we are all bad at this. We are all bad at this. You are bad at it, and I am certainly bad at it. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: if talking were law school, we’d all—all—be in the lowest tier.

But the Pulitzer Prize winning author Annie Dillard says that there is no such thing as talent (except in the fields of music, mathematics, and chess—and if you have such a gift, you’d know it by now). She says that we like to believe that people are born with innate talents because we like to think that the amazing things they do are easy for them, “that Rembrandt painted because he ‘had to’.” She says: “We want to believe all these nonsensical things in order to get ourselves off the hook.”

Loving people is hard work. Talking to people is hard work. Transparency is hard work. But valuing transparency, working towards transparency, is the stuff of loving. That’s the clarion call: transparency! Transparency. It’s the way we invite people around us to be where we are. It’s the way we end up where we want to be with the people we want to be there. Transparency is the way we love.

Mothers Who Know Consume Less

Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world's goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. Their goal is to prepare a rising generation of children who will take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the entire world. Their goal is to prepare future fathers and mothers who will be builders of the Lord's kingdom for the next 50 years. That is influence; that is power.

Sister Julie B. Beck, "Mothers Who Know," October 2007 http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-775-27,00.html

I have thought about this passage from Sister Beck's talk about every week--maybe more, maybe less--since I read it in the weeks after General Conference. (Though I attended all four sessions of conference, it's true--I was asleep when she gave it the first time.)

More often than I think about this passage, however, I think about these:

http://shop.nordstrom.com/s/2932364?origin=wishlist

I bought these last month at Nordstrom Rack, and I wear them, um, almost every day. (They are, as a consequence, wearing out already. They were not meant to be worn this regularly, I'd imagine. Or to walk the daily parking-lot-past-construction-site-to-school route I take. In February rains.)

Mothers who know consume less. Mothers who know--they reduce, reuse, recycle. They control their appetites. They buy fewer things, make do with fewer things. They don't, probably, probably not, spend Friday evenings looking at their shoes instead of at the faces of the friends they're playing board games with. (It doesn't happen a lot, but it does happen.)

I am not yet a mother, but as Sister Beck said yesterday, this single life is a time to take care of one room (and/or sharing the chores in the rest of the house) and one life to prepare for the time when I'll take care of many rooms and many lives. (Jazz fingers.)

Mothers who know consume less, and I spent twenty minutes--or more--searching online to find a picture of those shoes just so I could post them on my blog. (Not necessarily an act of consumption, but an act of only marginal productive returns.)

I know that Sis. Beck is not issuing a call to asceticism. She's issuing a call for restraint, for lower materialistic standards, for reflection and redress and, to invoke an Austenian allusion, retrenchment. ("You must retrench." Name the book/movie.) And this is something that I, in my new/burgeoning Palo Alto/law school aesthetic need to heed. Hear. Adhere to.

Do all twenty-somethings go through this? Do all/most twenty-somethings, maybe females, married or not, hit their mid- to upper-twenties and find themselves having scaled up into serious materialism and a life in which "retail therapy" has (a) lost much of its stigma and (b) seems to have actual therapeutic effects? This is where I am right now, ish. Ish, of course. (The sometimes reality of my money situation and President Benson's talk on pride are checks on this process, of course, as well as my reluctance to embrace a fashion-frenzied lifestyle my parents--and I, in my saner moments--always eschewed.) I guess my question is (this blog post is rambly, you may have noticed) this: what's the deal? Why is this materialism effective/affecting me? What's its hold, its appeal? Why does it even gain traction? Beauty? Self-improvement? A desire to be thought pretty and to be around pretty things? Straight up pride? Hm. Hm. Hm.

I will continue to think about this. I will go home tonight, make the "Frrrozen Hot Chocolate" I've been ogling all weekend (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/109560), and I will think about consuming less, as I drink my daiquiri-smooth, made-with six-pieces-of-gourmet-melted-chocolate-and-whipped-cream (today, cool whip) frozen hot chocolate.

But I will drink it slowly, and I will think for a looong time. (You think, too?)

I May Have Drunk the Kool-Aid.

Note: I realize that calling for change itself is foolhardy. As one snarky commenter on the youtube site wrote: "Change? From what? To what?" A worthy point. But that is where our processes come in, yes? Debate, representation, discussion, compromise, enaction, enforcement, refinement, and more voters to the booths. Also, the man who wrote this is named Jon Favreau; he is Obama's chief speechwriter, and he is 26 years old. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/fashion/20speechwriter.html?scp=1&sq=jon+favreau&st=nyt

And waterproof.

An email I wrote this week reminded me of something I have long been grateful for.

The Email

Re: Last Night

I came home to a moth in our bathroom sink. The sink is white. I think the moth must have rested there, on the white it found in the dark.

It didn't move when I came near it, and I didn't move it when I turned on the faucet to brush my teeth. And so its wings got wet. I tried to move it then, let it crawl on my finger and put it up high on the towel bar or on top of the mirror cabinet. But it would fall before it had anything to stand on and would be stuck wherever it fell.

You don't think moth wings dry, do you? That the moth wings ever recover from being wet? I have a childhood impression that they, or that insects like them, aren't as resilient as we'd like them to be. The moth ended up in the garbage can, resting on a piece of folded white paper. I don't know if it's still there.

What do you think the moths do in the rain?

What I Am Grateful For

Being waterproof.

Stacey and I have often joked that we are glad to be waterproof.

"What's he like?" she might say.
And I might say in return, "Funny. Tender-hearted. Waterproof."

"How're you feeling today?" I might ask.
"Tired," she'd say. "And waterproof."

But on rainy days like these February ones, I am glad to be waterproof. And I'm hoping moths are, too.

P.S. I tried to embed (my first embedding ever) a third-party application to my blog that will allow you to listen to music tracks of my choosing at your choosing (I'm not myself partial to those that automatically play when I'm on a website). (Can you see it, use it? It should be to the right, just underneath the blog archive.) The first track I've added is "February," by Dar Williams. I chose "February" 1. for Anna, her second-trimester baby girl, and old time's sake. 2. Because it's super, super beautiful. And 3. because I've been thinking recently that we should go out of our way to love things in the months they were meant for.

A McCain Conversation, Continued

A friend has been posting his thoughts about the current presidential primary race, and he recently responded to one of my comments on his blog. I then was going to write such a long additional comment that I thought I would just add my comment as a post on my blog, perhaps to momentarily silence the tinning, persistent voice that rings in the dark back of my head: Post more, post more, else Jess D. will start to hurt you.

*****
In reply to http://cdasay.blogspot.com/2008/02/more-on-mccain.html
Despite this post's (what I would consider to be a) distinct mischaracterization of my previous comment, I think these are good answers. I think you are right to weigh heavily McCain's foreign policy (the lack of checks is a serious issue), though I still think that for the long-term good of the country, the possibility of Supreme Court appointments should outweigh almost every other presidential vote consideration, all things being equal. This election, however, they may not be equal, as you say, because McCain may well nominate justices who are fairly ideologically similar to whom the Democrats would nominate (Senate review considered), so perhaps foreign policy deserves overweighting, since the judicial nomination issue might be fairly moot.

Note: This isn't to say that, in any way, I think that if I were only going on the possibility of SC nominees, I would vote for McCain. I have so few clear thoughts about him. At this point, my presidential race score card reads something like this:

Clinton: 1 vote (because, according to an online quiz, my stances on the issues match hers the best of the current candidates' (I know--who knew?))

Obama: 2 votes (2/3 vote each because he makes me feel good when I hear him speak, because people I know who knew him say he really is wise and kind and intelligent, and because his wife appears to be a rockstar)

McCain: 0 votes (because I have, as of yet, heard of no reason I should vote for him--oh wait, maybe 1/2 vote; maybe I don't hate his immigration policies, at least as they were recounted to me), so maybe McCain: 1/2 vote

You'll notice these votes aren't necessarily cast for substantive reasons. I am still working on having intelligent, reasoned opinions about these things. No matter what the Founding Fathers may have hoped, this is a surprisingly difficult thing for some of us to do. Oh, the weighty burdens of democracy. Our own, modern American noblesse oblige.

The Dilemma Resolved

In case you were wondering how it played out (see post below): Michelle and I let the boys off the hook. Boy #2 still came to dinner (hooray!), and we invited another good friend (a girl) and were joined by our great roommate, Reija. So it was a good time with a ridiculous amount of food (including some unintentionally smoked pork), and I didn't even serve the corn I'd planned to.

But Boys #1 and #3 are on the docket for being invited again and for their sakes', we're pleased the Giants won.

(Related: The great Emily T. sent me this link in honor of my last blog post. And for her and for you, I include it here: http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/professional_sports_is_very.)

Sports Widows, Already? or How We Learned (or Didn't) to Give in to the Super Bowl and Eat Our Tacos Alone

The dilemma: My roommate Michelle and I invited three boys over for Sunday dinner. Oral invitations were made last week post-church; all three boys said yes. Turns out, we discovered today, that we have invited them to dinner on Super Bowl Sunday.


The question: What do we do about it?

The situation:

• Boy 1: Already said he can't come. (He promised his roommates he'd watch it with them, and he forgot that was this Sunday, and can we do it some other time?)
• Boy 2: We're not sure how he feels about football. There's a distinct possibility that he doesn't care. We've heard no word from him regarding this issue (though we haven't contacted him to broach it anew).
• Boy 3: I ran into him tonight doing some pre-Sabbath Saturday shopping (buying food for our dinner tomorrow--I'm reading a memoir about tacos, so tacos (though nice ones) it is). An account of that is included herein for your consideration. (The following text is from an email I just sent to my roommate Michelle, reporting on the run-in. She was already asleep when I returned home from the store. Note: The account has been slightly edited for public perusal.)

I ran into A--y at Safeway. Actually, he hailed me. It was pretty cute. He asked what time dinner was again, and I said, "It's during the Super Bowl," and he looked a little sad. Just a little. We talked about it, and he's totally willing to come (he said, "I don't want you to change your plans for me--no, let's do it, let's do it") but I felt bad. He empathetically explained (when I told him DW was out for the SB), "You have to understand the mindset. Never has a team gone into the Super Bowl undefeated, and this year, the Patriots are doing it. So that's historic. Also, the Super Bowl itself just happens once a year." And he held up one finger, raised his eyebrows, and smiled. But he's in--he's in for whenever we have it. But I feel kind of bad making him miss it (though I did just buy this meat--I guess I could make it for us or freeze it?). Anyway, should we try to have the dinner later--like at 7 (though he'll probably miss the tail end of it) or earlier, like at 4 (so he only misses the middle)? Or just leave it as it is and require AP (and maybe MK--any idea how he feels about football?) to draw deep upon his selflessness and goodness and come (and hope that he doesn't begin to resent the moments we're eating chocolate chip cookies?)? I don't know, MH. It's a tough call.

Oh, the gendered dilemmas posed by professional sports!

But I think dinner's going to rock.
Sarah

Considerations:

1. Michelle was disappointed that Boy 1 chose football (but also his roommates) over us.
2. Michelle has purchased taco fixings that will not wait until next week. We could eat them tomorrow ourselves, or invite girls (and more non-football-interested boys?) over tomorrow. But then we'd have to think of a meal and procure food anew for when, eventually, we invite Boys 1 & 3 back over again.
3. We have to make this decision by sometime early to mid-Sunday afternoon.
4. By the time you read this post, this issue might be moot.

Care to weigh in?

Checker/Bagger

This is a small piece I wrote in my creative nonfiction class this quarter. I imagine more of these, unrevised though they are, will be coming.

I used to smell the cilantro as it passed across my scanner. I would pick it up off the belt--and slow the stream of purchasing long enough to open the tissuey plastic produce bag and slip my nose in. My nose on their cilantro. I pretended it was normal. "Never can tell," I would say. "It looks so much like parsley." And I would pass the bag to my left, slip it down the slope to the end of my checkstand counter where, if I was lucky, stood a bagger who would load and stack and fill and pack. Bananas on top. People always bought bananas.

I was a checker-slash-bagger at the HEB in Far West, the one with the big kosher section and deli because we were near the Austin Jewish Community Center. I lived next to the grocery store--through the parking lot, past the rusted, one-wheeled shopping carts, up a small wooded embankment, where one night after a late shift or an evening shopping run my roommates and I saw and heard an owl. I never used a shopping cart when I lived there because, if I did, I'd buy so much I couldn't carry it all home. Even then sometimes I'd have to rest my bags on the ground, stopping periodically to rest my fingers and wrists from the tight pull of the plastic handles.

It was the handles on the plastic bags that meant I had to use them. I couldn't carry my groceries home in a paper sack--all under one arm. I was the fourth child of nine; I have never learned to shop for one. And our paper bags at HEB had no handles. We were no Trader Joe's in this respect. I packed food and toiletries and paper products and bananas--people always bought bananas--into plastic bags all day. Junior bags were smaller--each could hold one gallon of milk--and we were encouraged to use them. "One and a half cents per bag," my manager reminded us. "And the bigger ones are three cents." "How much for the paper?" I asked. "Seventeen cents," he said. "We'd stop offering them if we could."

Now when I go to grocery stores I am tempted to tell my checker I used to work at one, too. And not so long ago--three years, actually. Three years. The length of law school. Sometimes I do--I say it to the man or woman or kid ringing up my orange juice, my frozen potstickers, my bananas. I wonder what they'll think of me, wearing a law school sweatshirt, spending more than I can afford on chicken breast and whole wheat tortillas. Maybe they think I'm condescending, holding onto a past, perhaps a summer job, that isn't worth remembering. Probably they think nothing. "How much you get paid?" one checker at the Safeway on California asked. "$7.50 an hour," I said. She laughed. "I get $18."

I left Austin, left the HEB, left the days, I guess, of smelling other people's cilantro. I graduate from law school in May, and I may never be able to afford to work in a grocery store again. But when I choose plastic bags--still, for the handles--I remember this: a white stubble-faced customer who told me he wanted paper. "I always get paper," he said. "Why?" I looked up and asked. "Because," he said, "I was a sailor. And once, three thousand miles from anywhere, I looked down in the ocean and saw a plastic bag floating there."

For Jess.

Joining the Conversation

I'd set aside this time to study my scriptures. Instead, I got caught up reading my email. Of course. But I get a google news daily update of the news articles involving "mitt romney" and today's came with a torturous Reuters article, in which one of Romney's former roommates at BYU (someone named Moody; probably a blood relative of mine) reveals that Mitt and other Mormons have sworn to obey the prophet, who is directly directed by Jesus Christ, and that this oath is unreconcilable with what Mitt promises: to be a president not directed by his religious leaders.

Though I certainly wouldn't use words like "swear" ("covenant" is more my style, with its different level of thoughtfulness and wholeheartedness) and while I would clarify that our covenants are not with the prophet but are, in fact, with God, I more specifically want to say this: if criticizers are concerned (even inasmuch as it's false or unnuanced) that Mitt says that he will obey the prophet and that that saying (the swearing, the covenanting) grows out of a Mormon doctrine, then they should also be reassured that LDS church leaders, the prophet included, have said (which, for them, also rises to the level of promise) that they will not interfere with political leaders who are LDS, which thing is supported by the also doctrinal Mormon tenent that God's true church does not use anything but persuasion of the general citizenry to affect government.

Yes? See?

And now, more importantly, to my scripture study.

We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. [...]

No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned;

By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile--

Reproving betimes with sharpness, when moved upon by the Holy Ghost; and then showing forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy.

D&C 121: 39, 41-43

My Own Qwantz

Explanatory note: Marissa C. and I were chatting this morning about the dinosaur cartoons (www.qwantz.com)--which I am totally digging in this subtle, daily sort of way--when she abruptly switched topics and said almost every word of the following. I thought: Good goo, that would be funny coming out of the mouths of dinosaurs. And so, la, my own qwantz.

For Marissa, wherever this may find her.

Back to the Basics

It's late, but I feel like I should say a thing. And this, tonight, is what I want to say:

back to the basics.

My roommate KT said it this week--that she was going back to the basics (the basics, of course, being sleeping and scripture reading).

Sleeping and scripture reading. Great ideas, both. They are--or should be--like the big rocks of Covey fame, the things we put into our vases first, before we pour in the little rocks that top off the Japanese-style, zen-ish sort of centerpiece Covey suggests is a metaphor for our lives. As my perpetually great-and-busy friend Jane says, the purpose of life is to be happy, close to the Spirit, and of service to others. And when she doesn't sleep (I would add--or read scriptures) or sleep enough, she is none of those things. Also, she said tonight, sleep just feels good.

I, of course, of course, concur. And with that, I'm to bed.

P.S. Peter-of-my-heart, I talked to Mom today, and she was wondering if I had any advice for you at this moment in your just-as-we-expected crazy freshman year. If I were to say anything it would be, of course, that I love you. And that Jane and Karren and I agree--back to the basics. It's the way to go.

Two Great Things

1. A comic strip
The tagline for this comic strip series is "sexy exciting dinosaur comics for the thinking man or lady." (The boys who sit in front of me in Administrative Law read it everyday. And, reading it over their shoulders, I laugh.)

www.qwantz.com

2. A cheese
On the night of the season premiere of The Office, I found myself at the tail end of a Law Students for Reproductive Choices and Rights (or something) meeting. (I was hosting an event in the same room, just following their event.) In the end, they had more cheese than attendees, so they sent me home with some leftovers. I shared some of the cheese they gave me with a friend--Laura Russon--and she was so delighted by the taste of one (really, really a great cheese) that she sleuthed out the name of it. She found it, of course, at the Milk Pail. And so, now, I recommend it to you:

White Stilton with Apricot

SO, so good.

Three Moments from Yesterday

1

"Why Miss Katherine, you have flowers in your hair."

They say that my grandma Olson wore a silk flower in her hair every day when she was young. Yesterday morning, I walked out of my house and turned to lock the front door and realized this: it was the third day in a row (excepting my church clothes Sunday) that I was wearing flower-shaped earrings (the ones Reija bought for Karren, that I love). Too, I was wearing, third day in a row, my slip-on school shoes with the flower design on the toe (the grey ones I bought that one shopping day with Kristine and Sara). And also, too, I was wearing my purple shirt with the red flowers on the front and the back (the one J. told me was a good color, when we stood under the lamplight after a night at Dave & Buster's).

As I turned from door to stairs to bike, I was pleased by it all: the flowers on my ears, the flowers on my shirt, the flowers on my shoes. Like Grandma's flower, I thought, as I kicked up my kickstand and rode the gravelly drive to the street.

2
"So now I feel like a real Californian."

Last night, we had an earthquake. I was at a friend's on-campus apartment on the first-floor of a mid-rise building (Abrams, to be exact). And I heard a thundering, felt a thundering, and thought (so many years at BYU!): There must be a lot of girls running down the stairs. But the building kept shaking, from side-to-side, and my friend said: This is an earthquake. I tried to remember the emergency skills I'm supposed to have been developing over the years and wondered if, finally, I would already need them. (The unassembled bookshelves in that tall box, leaning against the wall--does that count as a triangle?) No, it turns out. Thank goodness.

3
"As always, my passes at omniscience are absurd, but you, of all people, should be polite to the part of me that comes out merely clever."

My final preparations for bed include washing my face and brushing my teeth, of course. I do this at our bathroom sink, which is white and has a wide (happily wide) edge to it. Last night, as I put my floss away (on a shelf that's high and requires a stretch), I brought my toothbrush and toothpaste down even though I didn't need them right away. I put the toothbrush and toothpaste on the edge of the sink, as I leaned to wash my face. I realized that they--and the book I'd brought with me into the bathroom--might get wet on the sink's edge, as I rinsed soap from skin and makeup from eye, so I decided to move them to a safer, dryer spot. I looked down to the sink's ledge where they were and saw them, for a second, like a picture: a blue toothbrush and a tube of regular paste Crest, lying on top of Reija's paperback copy of Franny and Zooey. The pile of three all lying on the white porcelain edge of my bathroom sink. There was something about that I loved--the grouping of the Salinger with my nighttime necessities. Toothpaste for the brush, toothbrush for my teeth, and Salinger for my soul. "As one limping man to another, old Zooey, let's be courteous and kind to each other."

The Upward Pull: A Talk for Convocation

This is a talk I gave last night at Convocation, a sort of school year kick-off service for and by the LDS Stanford community. It's held in Memorial Church (so beautiful, see Procrastination blog entry below), and Elder Robert S. Wood was the keynote speaker. It was a very good evening; I felt such love for and from my community.

* * * * *

Sometimes I feel an upward pull, a desire to be better than I am. Perhaps you, like I, have wondered if there’s more to life than this, if we can be better than we are. We go to school, to work, to our recreation. We talk with people we love, we try to find ways to serve others, and we try to read the good books always being recommended to us. These are the manifestations of the good desires within us. But we are flawed, too. We drop our pencils; we barely remember to take out the garbage, resenting that tomorrow or the next day, it will have to be done again; we miss appointments, are late, forget birthdays and the lyrics to even the songs we like. Amidst this—the good things in life and in ourselves, amidst the mundane, and, sometimes, the horrible—we wonder: Is this all life is? Is this all I am? Surely, there must be something better than this, even all of this. Surely, I can be better.

Henry B. Eyring, current First Counselor of the First Presidency of our church and a former professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, described this upward pull. In one of my favorite talks, he said: “That upward pull we have felt is far more than a desire for self-improvement. It is a longing for home.”

What President Eyring described is not a homesick longing for a childhood home, but is, I believe, our native human desire to, as President Eyring explains, “be again with the Heavenly Father we have loved and who loves us.” We may not know it, we may not call it that—but our individual desires to be better than we are, despite life being what it is, are manifestations of our inborn senses of how we can and should change in order to be with God again, feel his love, and live in his presence along with those we love.

Revealed scripture tells us that the prophet Abraham felt this longing, too. He was a good man, righteous. But he felt that there was greater happiness and peace and rest for him. He was righteous, but he desired to be a greater follower of righteousness. He had great knowledge, but he also wanted to add to this earthly knowledge a “greater knowledge,” of godly things. He wanted to be a father of many nations, to have children and a legacy that would impact humanity in peaceful and long-lasting ways. He wanted to receive instructions from God, and once given those instructions, he wanted to obey them.

I feel the upward pull President Eyring describes. I, like Abraham, try to be good. I want to be someone who knows things. I want to learn more, and to learn more about godly things. I want to be a mother. I want to be productive and to have children, both literal and figurative, who bless the world with their righteousness and with peace. I want, like Abraham did, for God to tell me what to do, and I want to be the kind of person who does what God tells her to do.

Revealed scripture tells us what Abraham did when he felt this upward pull. He sought for the blessings of the fathers and for the right to administer those blessings to others. LDS doctrine teaches us that the blessings of the fathers that Abraham seeks here are the blessings of the priesthood, the authority God gives man to act in his name. This priesthood is God’s power, a real power. It is not man-made pomp or influence or argument. It is not the dazzle of intellect or the sheer weight of tradition. The priesthood authority is the literal powers of heaven given to man to effect, to bind, and to bless. When Abraham felt the upward pull to be better than he was, he sought the blessings of the priesthood.

I have sought after and have begun to receive the blessings of the priesthood, the blessings of my physical and spiritual fathers. By the power of the priesthood, I have made covenants with God. I have promised I will always remember the Savior Jesus Christ and that I will try to keep the commandments that He has given us. I have covenanted to try to love others, to bear their burdens, to comfort them when they are in need of comfort. And I have promised to be obedient, chaste, and giving.

As I have tried to keep these covenants, I have felt God’s power in my life. A friend asked me this week if I could, with my faith, part the water in the fountain at Café Borrone. I haven’t seen God’s power manifested like that. But I have seen and felt and do see and feel God’s power in my life: I, as self-interested and flaky as I am, feel purpose in life and love for those around me. And I, as easily dissuaded and discouraged as I am, feel divine hope and patience, even in the face of my daily trials, when I spill food on myself, drop my pencils, say annoying things to my friends and my professors. Even as I take out the garbage, resenting it all the way to and from the garbage can, I do, I really do remember that I am bound to God by my covenants and that I am blessed and strengthened and protected by the priesthood, which administers the atoning grace of Jesus Christ. This power—the softening, changing, purpose-giving power—is some of the power of God that I see in my life.

Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want us to return to them. They want us to feel the upward pull and to, as Abraham did, seek the blessings of the priesthood—their blessings, given by their power. They want us to want to be better than we are, to change, and to covenant with them, that we may become like them and love others as they love, both here on earth and forever.

I pray that as we study this year, that as we pay attention to our desires to learn more, to run faster, to think more clearly, and to be kinder to our neighbors, that we will remember that our true-hearted desires to be like God, to be with God, and to feel His love again, are reminders of God’s plan for us, a plan the sole purpose of which is to help us find greater happiness and peace and rest, as Abraham did, by seeking the blessings of the priesthood, the literal power of God.

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

References
Abraham 1:2
"Making Covenants with God" by Henry B. Eyring

Lemon

Preface
I mark my initials on the food and food stuffs I store in general spaces. I do this for one reason: to remind myself that a particular food item is mine. I don't actually care--don't, don't, past and present roommates know all too well--if other people use/eat/feel comfortable giving away my food and food stuffs. In fact, actually, it makes me feel complimented. That they would think something I would choose and buy would be something they would want. (For instance, Karren and my dark chocolate-covered soy nuts. Totally complimented that she would want to snack/sneak them. No sneaking necessary.)

So I don't mark my food with my little swirly SO to keep others away. I SO it so that I will (1) know that I can eat/use it with impunity. (I've learned I naturally feel too comfortable with communal living and being free with other people's things, so I usually feel a little guilty/doubtful about eating/using food and sugar and spices that aren't marked or aren't mine, though, though, here at Melville I usually do it anyway.) Also, (2) so that down the road, down the road, when the food item is unclaimed and/or moldy and forgotten, I will see it, know it, and take responsibility for it. ("Whose rotten grapefruits are just sitting on the counter, fruit fly breeding? Gross. Oh wait. Those are mine.") This often, often comes in handy.

Story
Once, Karren and I were cleaning out the fridge, and in the condiments door, we came across a lemon juice container. It was small, yellow, plastic, lemon-shaped. Classic and, from its lack of luster, mature. We picked it up and there, on one of its curved sides, was a swirly little SO. Mine, we guessed. And then we turned it round and there, on the other side of the same lemon container, was a smart, dark, black permanent marker KT. SO. KT. Both on one lemon.

Epilogue
I have considered that lemon-finding moment for the past, oh, seven months. Still, I CANNOT FATHOM HOW SUCH A THING HAPPENED. And I wish, wish, wish, we could rewind the living and replay the moments when I thought it was mine and SOed it and when Karren thought it was hers and KTed it and when it was bought and who paid.

My point: I love this story. And despite its being about lemon juice, I think it's very, very sweet.

Procrastination: The Lyric of a Midnight Deadline

I added a link to Breast Cancer on my Mozilla Firefox bookmarks toolbar, so when I am really procrastinating, I can click on it and fight breast cancer. Which I just did/fought. Hyah.

I realized I hadn't eaten dinner (officially), so I het up a bowl of Trader Joe's butternut squash soup, toasted a piece of cracked wheat sourdough, added some of Reija's salsa and my plain yogurt (to the soup), and ate. Slowly. Also, I grinded my own pepper to season it.

I checked my four active games of Scrabulous on Facebook. No one had moved. (Wait! Just checked during this writing, and Patti Z. has moved! "[Last play 4m ago.]" I'll be back.) *** FOUND for 21 points.

Oh, just saw a (1) come up next to my Gmail - Inbox tab. I'll check that. *** Just an email I was cc'ed on but with pertinent data. The LDS students have a convocation every fall at Stanford. They bring in a big name speaker, pair him with an undergrad student and a grad student, and have them all speak (sequentially, of course) from the gilded pulpit of the Memorial Church. The Institute Choir sings. Goodness, that's a beautiful building. This year, Elder Robert S. Wood is the big name speaker. This year, I am the grad student speaker. Topic: Abraham 1:2. I should begin to think about that, maybe I should start drafting my talk now?




No, no. This is procrastination enough. A blog entry. With an added picture. You know, to stave off the criticisms of being such an infrequent blogger (S: Did you read my new blog entry about rockstars? M: No, I don't check your blog anymore since you never post regularly). Point taken.

Um, um, um. I could/should read my scriptures. Maybe someone has called me? It has been thirty minutes since I last checked my phone. I should put these dishes away. Does it count if I click for breast cancer twice in one day? When does the day start over--EDT or PDT? Do they know where I am? Does it reset at midnight here? How does that work, if, in fact, it works at all?

It's 10:30 pm.

I should put these dishes away. Will do. First, I should edit this entry. You know, just reread it, to make sure it, you know, reads.

From the top.

Rockstars

I've taken lately to using the term "rockstar" to describe the people I love and the rockstar people I come across. For instance.

And yesterday, yesterday, I was talking to a classmate, a 2L, with a low voice, soft. Thin face, thin grey hair, thin pale sweater, and a propensity to introduce the idea and value of beer into our conversations, and I said to him, Foster, what did you do before law school? He said, I toured the country with my band for 10 years.

He told me then that he played the guitar, that he and his brother (his partner) had decided their band had gotten as big as it was going to get and they could spend the rest of their lives playing to 200-300 person crowds each night or, or, they could leave and get real jobs. They decided on real jobs and here he is now in law school. (He also said there's only so much Budweiser one person should consume in a lifetime, and he'd definitely reached that limit.)

I said, In your personal statement, did you say "You should admit me because I am literally a rockstar"? He said, it did give me a lot of interesting things to write about.

A rockstar, literally.

http://www.vegasdemilo.com/

Note: I'm not even sure "rockstar" is one word. Maybe it's supposed to be two. But I like its compounded form. I think it emphasizes the solidity of the thing, the intense and solid nature of the status of being a rockstar, the qualities of being so great the rockstar label is deserved. Rock star? Rockstar.

Too: On the heels of my firm's interviewing at my law school this year, one of my attorney friends was telling me about how his interview with one woman I'd recommended had gone. I said, What did you think of her? He said, You know. I said, I do? (not actually having any idea what he was referencing). He said, Yes, just like you said. She's a rockstar.

Eden's Children

Let's set aside the fact, for a moment, that I don't know from memory all of my nieces and nephews' birthdays or, necessarily, their middle names.

I want to talk about my friends' children.


I have friends with children. (Note: This is a partial list, designed to target a specific subset of friends, my former Eden roommates, whose whereabouts and burgeonings I'm really, I'm realizing, behind on.)

Some I knew about:

Henry
http://autumnandbarrett.blogspot.com/





Jacob
http://mommytheo.blogspot.com/







Adri
http://jackiwalker.blogspot.com/







and, of course, Sam and Kyle's famous Kate and Owen
http://kylemillerfamily.blogspot.com/






Some, however, I did not know about:

Laine??
it turns out--see http://autumnandbarrett.blogspot.com/ but you have to scroll down a few entries






Emma??
http://philwebbfamily.blogspot.com/
(See ridiculously beautiful picture at top of blog.)

And some are predicted but not yet arrived:

Vera Jewell
http://philwebbfamily.blogspot.com/

The Bun
http://smylie.wordpress.com/

AND Jasmine and Arthur's GIRL! (This is news to me. Thank heavens for the peer pressure that Jasmine succumbed to.)
http://vanwagenen.blogspot.com/

This is what I want to say:

I think that we should seriously consider some kind of forum for us to gather these children together and let me meet them (and, for instance, meet Arthur and, too, re-see some of you, aka all of you, I haven't seen since, for instance, I got bangs). It's true--do you remember?--that BYU has some sort of a pretty baby contest each year as part of homecoming festivities. (Doesn't it? Did anyone ever go or pay attention to that? I always figured it was a No,-Wymount,-you-really-are-part-of-this-community sort of activity.) But I'm thinking it's time for us to have our own baby beauty contest.

To make it a fairer fight--let's be honest, so-and-so's baby really is the cutest--we can add other categories. Frothiest Gurgling, Realest Fake Laugh, Looks Most Like His/Her Mom, Longest Stay-Awaker, Best Kisser. Something. I'll take suggestions.

And to judge, we can maybe have those of us who still don't have children (read, single aka situationally barren) do the judging, since we're dispassionate, independent, and, the good men tell us, needing to serve.

What say? We can gather in Utah. (Everyone still has family there, yes?) Or crash Sam and Kyle's place in Las Vegas (to take advantage of the stays-in-Vegas cheap hotel rates). (Sam and Kyle, you do still live in Vegas, yes?)

And, while we're trying to sort this all out (yes, Juice, you can come, too, despite your not having ever visited us in Eden--or did you? Phil, Rebecca, your spouses--you all count, too), I want us to consider the irony/appropriateness of this: We lived in Eden. We left. Some of you got pregnant. Which thing the prophets foretold. See 2 Ne 2:22-24, Moses 5:11.

(Also consider: You used to come home to me, and now you come home to them. It's true, I don't have a lot to offer you that's better than they are so as to fight for a place to stay in your heart. I, like them, may have kept you up with my crying, may have asked you to wash my undergarments, may have spat Cheerios and apple sauce your floor (sometimes we would laugh and eat at the same time, remember?), may have wanted you to open an Otter Pop for me and scratch my back. But in all the time we lived together and/or have been friends, I have never, never, never required that you suck the mucus out of my nose with one of those squeezy tubey things. I'm just, just saying.)